Reported is the first demonstration of clinical mode
whole body imaging at 7T, using a body coil for best uniformity together with
local receivers for improved sensitivity. Body imaging at 7T however requires
new technology and methods to mitigate the severe RF artifacts encountered by
conventional approaches. To achieve safe and successful body images, an
actively detuned, 16-channel TEM body coil was used together with a pair of 8
channel receive arrays. B1 shimming was employed to optimize the RF field over
the ROI. 32 combined channels from the body coil and the receive arrays were
used to maximize signal.